The Professor (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #1)(52)

“Where’s...”

“In the conference room.”

Rick started for the door as Frankie added, “She has a visitor.”

Rick jerked the door open, and glared into the room. “Are you...” He stopped when he saw who was there.

“Hey, brother,” Powell said, eating from a massive bag of vinegar and salt potato chips and drinking a canned Miller High Life beer. “Want a cold one?” Powell twisted a can out of the six-pack sitting on the table and tossed it to Rick. Rick caught it, and looked at Dawn, whose face was glowing red. She, too, was drinking from a Miller High Life can. It was hard to look at her without thinking of the wet T-shirt photograph.

“What’s going on?” Rick asked. “You two know each other?”

“We just met,” Dawn said, sounding giddy. “I thought I was good at finding people, but your friend here...” Dawn looked toward Powell, who popped a chip in his mouth and winked at Rick.

“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” Rick asked, still not getting it as he held the lukewarm beer in his hand.

“I found him, brother,” Powell said, standing up and licking his fingers. “I found Mule.”





37


Faunsdale is a sleepy town about forty-five minutes west of Tuscaloosa. In most respects, it’s like every other small town in the state. It has one school where all the kids go, one stop light and a couple of restaurants. But for one weekend every April, Faunsdale becomes the center of Alabama.

The Alabama Crawfish Festival was started in 1992 by John “Ca-John” Broussard, who got his nickname from his roots in southern Louisiana. The center or hub of the festival is the Faunsdale Bar & Grill, also called “Ca-John’s”, which Ca-John bought in 1995. There is a cooking area in the street outside the restaurant where thousands of pounds of crawfish are prepared. On the Friday of the festival, crawfish is served starting at 11am and continues to be served until the last song is sung on Saturday night. Faunsdale is known for good crawfish, good beer and good music, and Alabamians and even folks from other states flock there every April.

Powell loved the Crawfish Festival, having attended the last three years by himself. This year, he’d gotten there early and started asking questions. After three hours, two beers and a half pound of crawfish, he’d run into a man named Doolittle Morris, whom everyone seemed to call “Doo”. Doo’s job at the festival was to run the mechanical bull, which had been set up right outside of Ca-John’s.

After admittedly asking several questions about the operation of the mechanical bull, which Powell was fascinated by, he finally got around to asking Doo if he knew a Dick Morris. Doo had laughed long and hard.

“Only all my life,” Doo had said. “Mule’s my cousin.”

So now here they were. Rick and Dawn. Seated in the back of Ca-John’s, gazing across the table at Dick “Mule” Morris.

Rick immediately understood the reason for the nickname. The man must have been six feet five inches tall and well over three hundred pounds.

“Listen, I can make this quick.” Mule said. He spoke with a slight lisp and his eyes were droopy. “The day Dewey died, he didn’t even get to our place until 9.45, cause his rig wasn’t ready.” Mule chuckled. “‘Ol’ Dewey was just a cussing. We got the trailer hooked on pretty quick, but it didn’t matter. It was still almost 10 before he hit the road, and he had to be in Montgomery by 11.” Lowering his voice, Mule placed his gigantic elbows on the table and added: “I still remember the last thing he said to me.”

Rick’s adrenaline had hit overload, but he forced the question out with as much calm as he could muster. “What did he say, Mule?”

“He said, ‘Guess I’ll either make it or I’ll get a ticket. Same shit, different day.’”

Rick wanted to kiss Mule Morris on the forehead.

“Mule, had you loaded Dewy Newton’s truck prior to the day of the accident?”

“Oh, yeah. I probably saw Dewey in there once, maybe twice a week.”

“Did he ever complain about his schedule before the accident?”

Mule nodded. “Dewey was always bitching about that, and it wasn’t just him. All those Willistone drivers did.”

Rick glanced at Dawn for a second, and her eyes were as wide as saucers. Holy shit, he thought.

“I tell you what you need,” Mule continued, leaning back and rubbing his chin. “Every time a driver left the yard with a load, we did a bill of lading. The bill would have the time they were supposed to deliver the load already on it, and we’d stamp the pickup time on the front. The bill for Dewey’s run the day of the accident was stamped 9.57 or something like that and the delivery time, like I said, was 11.00. That ain’t enough time to get to Montgomery by the speed limit.” He paused. “I stamped a bunch of bills, and there was a lot of that going on. I told our plant manager about it, and he said not to worry.” Mule shrugged, shaking his head. “So I didn’t.”

“We’ve tried to get the bills,” Dawn chimed in. “But the Ultron plant burned to the ground the night of the accident.”

Mule opened his mouth, then nodded, as if he just remembered something. “The fire...” He shook his head and took a deep breath. For a second, Rick thought he was going to say something else, but instead he just smiled. “Is there anything more I can help you with?”